Frantic Mom Engages Street-Wise Crew in Search for Son

Bernice Stokes (LisaGay Hamilton) is a parole officer in Los Angeles where her job routinely places her in close proximity with the dregs of society. She normally has no reason to associate with such miscreants after hours, being very straitlaced and coming from a solid, middle class background.

However, everything changes the day the single-mom’s only child (McKinley Belcher III) suddenly vanishes without a trace. Rodney, an Iraq War veteran hadn’t been the same since serving overseas.

Bernice was aware that he’d been hanging out with some unsavory characters recently, including a suspected drug dealer who was just murdered. Desperate to find her son, she strikes an unspoken bargain with Fontayne Scott (Yolonda Ross), a new client who has just flunked a urine test.

Rather than report Fontayne to her superior, Bernice enlists the streetwise addict’s assistance in the search. Complicating matters a bit is the fact that the two had been close friends back in high school. So, while unearthing clues pointing to Tijuana, the former BFFs are afforded an opportunity to deconstruct the events leading to their falling out over a boy they both wanted.

Besides Fontayne’s help, Bernice also retains the services of Freddy Suarez (Edward James Olmos), a disgraced, LAPD detective whose investigative experience and fluent Spanish are likely to come in handy south of the border. Packing a guitar and singing in the car, the unlikely trio heads for Mexico, posing as a musical group in order to not arouse suspicion.

Written and directed by two-time, Academy Award-nominee John Sayles (for Passion Fish and Lone Star), Go for Sisters is a deliberately-paced crime drama which benefits as much from absorbing character development as from the intrigue surrounding solving the underlying whodunit. Credit charismatic Edward James Olmos for keeping the movie compelling, although Yolonda Ross and LisaGay Hamilton manage to fold their own opposite the Oscar-nominated thespian (for Stand and Deliver).

A dangerous border town as no country for old men or middle-aged sisters either.